Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
My current music library external disk drives are over 90% full now. This, and the fact that one of them just failed has convinced me that it’s time to upgrade. So, I’ve been hardware shopping today, online.
After perusing Amazon and eBay, it looks like the 1.5 TB external drives are currently the best buy. Go above this in storage size, and the cost per GB rises significantly. Go below this, and I’ll have to upgrade again too soon, as I have over 93000 old time radio shows (~1 TB) to add to the library as well.
I’ve therefore selected the Seagate Desk FreeAgent 1.5 TB, USB 2.0 external drives. These drives have a thin profile, which means that they’ll fit easily into my laptop cases that I take on DJ gigs. Thus, I have ordered three of these now, and will get the others in February, 2010, once I’ve played with them a little and really gotten comfortable with them as good replacements for my current hardware.
I’ll track this upgrade until I have at least six of the bigger drives, fully populated with my media library. Follow the progress of this effort in the attached comments.
January 5th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
The first order of three 1.5 TB drives arrived today.
So far, the entire music library has been synced to one of them, and there’s still 1.2 TB of free space left!
Syncing the second drive now…
January 6th, 2010 at 9:47 am
11:00 AM: A copy of the Tommy’s Tunes music library now resides all three new drives that I received yesterday.
I like these units, though they use different USB cables than my older drives; these employ the mini-B male plug at the drive end of the cable, which is found on many cell phone adapters these days, where my previous drives use a standard-B male plug, which is primarily intended for physically larger devices. No problem though as cables with the smaller B connecter can be purchased for under $5 apiece. I’ll order some of them shortly, and the only problem I foresee is bringing the right cables along on the DJ gigs for the particular drives I’m carrying. I had hoped that the new drives would accept the same data cables as the old, so as to avoid this potential source of embarrassment. But ensuring that all laptop cases carry an ample supply of both types of USB cables shouldn’t be too difficult.
The new drives also differ from the old in the type of power supply adapter they require. The new ones require a single-output, 12-volt, 2-amp supply, where the old utilize a double-output adapter (12 volts as well as 5 volts). So, the power connections differ as well. The supplies for the new drives have a 2-conductor barrel plug, where the old ones use a PS2 plug. Thus, unfortunately, the new supplies, without modification, do not substitute for the old. Again though, this isn’t too big a deal, as the new-style adapters can be purchased for under $20 apiece. Plus, I found some supplies in the basement from the BusLink drives I used for the music back in 2001 and 2002. Changing the connectors on these to fit the new drives should make these into handy, spare supplies for these new FreeAgent drives.
Finally, the new supplies are of the “wall wart” variety. That is: the end that plugs into the mains is larger than typical, as it contains all the switching circuitry. This can cause troubles when running more than one adapter at a time, on a power strip whose outlets are too closely spaced. Fortunately though, the Belkin Isolator strips that I use on the DJ gigs, include lots of space between each outlet; indeed two of these wart-style supplies fit right next to each other, without even touching, though they are close. The old supplies have a power cord that plugs into the wall or power strip. The other end attaches to the switcher box. This configuration had the advantage that it removed the “wart” from the power strip, as the plug on the cheater cord is rather small. This means that the older supplies could still be used on closely-spaced outlets. So I lose this advantage with the new supplies. But again, since my power strips have lots of room between each outlet, things should work out well.
I’d say I got pretty lucky buying these drives on the Internet, touch unfelt because they aren’t so different than the old that retrofitting them into the infrastructure here at Tommy’s Tunes would cost too much. True, they need different cables and supplies than what I had before. But with prices of these accessories so low these days, this presents little if any hardship at all. So I’m going to go ahead and order three more of these external drives, spare cables, and power supplies as well.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Ordered the following accessories for the new drives during today’s Internet shopping trip:
* USB 2.0 A to Mini B cable, 6 Ft. (20)
* 120 volt to 12 volt, 2 Amp. switching power supply (6)
January 19th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
All the accessories (including the USB cables and power supplies) have arrived. Now, to complete this project, next month, I’ll order three more HDDs, and this effort we’ll conclude once they arrive and are populated.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Ordered four of the Seagate FreeAgent 2 TB drives. Once these get here and are populated, this will mean that this hard drive upgrade project is complete. Stand by.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:24 am
12:20 PM: Received the four Seagate FreeAgent 2 TB drives today. Populating them is underway. This will probably take the rest of today and into tomorrow to copy all the media library files to each one.
06:28 PM: The first drive just finished populating. Now starting the second.
May 19th, 2010 at 5:58 am
08:30 AM: The second drive finished populating sometime overnight.
08:45 AM: Unpacked the third of the four drives received yesterday, and just started copying the media library files to it.
04:40 PM: The third drive has been successfully populated. Now, unpacking and populating the fourth and lat hard drive.
10:59 PM: The fourth and last drive has been successfully populated. So, all that’s left to do, is replace the old drives in the DJ computer cases with these new ones, and this project will be finished.